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“Think of the circle I have drawn here as containing all knowledge. The circle is divided into three sections. The first section of all knowledge is called, “What I know that I know.” We all know what to do with what we know that we know – we put it to use. The next section of all knowledge is called, “What I know that I don’t know.” Again, we all know what to do with what we know that we don’t know – we learn. Finally, there is this vast remaining section of all knowledge called, “What I don’t know that I don’t know.” What to do about what we don’t know that we don’t know is something of a dilemma. And, what we don’t know that we don’t know about human beings is an important question when it comes to individual and social transformation… Werner Erhard on Breakthroughs in Individual and Social Transformation
“Most of our notions about the world come from a set of assumptions which we take for granted, and which, for the most part, we don’t examine or question. We bring these assumptions to the table with us as a given. They are so much a part of who we are that it is difficult for us to separate ourselves from them enough to be able to talk about them. We do not think these assumptions, we think from them.”
-Werner Erhard
“Breakthroughs are a product of seeing something in a new way, which enables you to see new opportunities and new openings for action that you couldn’t see before. Breakthroughs come as a result of shifting your commitment from the predictable future to a possible future.”
- Werner Erhard
“If you seriously examine any action, you find there are always two sides of it: the side from which you can explain it and the side from which you can produce it. After a recent two-day rise in the stock market, for example, I read an article that masterfully described that rise, analyzed it, and explained it. However, even though I now fully understand what happened, I am not going to bet my life savings on my ability to predict the next one.
In individual and organizational performance, most of us attempt to produce action by working in the after-the-fact realm of description, analysis, explanation, and prescription. Rarely do we consider that producing an action requires a whole different way of looking at it. If you want to have a dramatic impact on performance, you need access to the source of action.”
A spectator can describe what I’m doing on the tennis court. He is living in the realm of evaluation and explanation – but I’m playing in the world of action. While there is a relationship between his description and what is occurring on the court, the two are clearly not the same.
We seldom think about this sort of distinction, but “failing to make this simple distinction can lead to being satisfied with an explanation about action and may hide from our view the source of action,”
-Werner Erhard
-Quoted in Industry Week, June 15 1987, By Perry Pascarella
“In this conversation we discover another possibility: living in a way, now, moment to moment, that makes a difference to life. We discover that as human beings we can live in a possibility instead of in what we have inherited, that instead of just being a human being because we were born that way, we can declare the possibility of being for human beings. This is the work of transformation: bringing forth a breakthrough in the possibility of being human.”
“One of my claims to fame is that for five or six years I had the great privilege of being in conversation maybe two to four times a year with Richard Feynman, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist. We did not speak much about physics, because I am whatever is below amateur as a physicist. We spoke more about ideas. What was great about talking with Richard Feynman was he let absolutely nothing go by him. It had to make sense to him; he had to understand it.
I took notes over the five or six years in which we had these conversations – a lot of notes. He took only one note, but my claim to fame is that when he died, that one note was still on his blackboard. I am going to tell you what that one note was. ‘There are certain things you can only know by creating them for yourself.’ So the things I am sharing with you are not things I simply can hand over to you, but I can open up something for you to create for yourself.” – Werner Erhard, from A Breakthrough in Individual and Social Transformation
“Heroes are ordinary men and women who dare to see and meet the call of a possibility bigger than themselves. Breakthroughs are created by such heroes, by men and women who will stand for the result while it is only a possibility – people who will act to make possibility real.”
“I have no interest in the justification of circumstances or producing guilt in others by assigning obligation. I am interested in providing an opportunity for people to experience mastery in the matter of their own lives and the experience of satisfaction, fulfillment, and aliveness. These are a function of the self as context rather than thing, the self as space rather than location or position, the self as cause rather than self at effect.”
“An Evening with Werner Erhard: On Mastery”
Werner Erhard delivered public lectures for over two thousand people in New Delhi and in Mumbai in November 2010. Werner Erhard is pictured here with Gonneke Spits in Panchgani, India. For more on the events in India visit wernererhard.com
“In this conversation we discover another possibility: living in a way, now, moment to moment, that makes a difference to life. We discover that as human beings we can live in a possibility instead of in what we have inherited, that instead of just being a human being because we were born that way, we can declare the possibility of being for human beings. This is the work of transformation: bringing forth a breakthrough in the possibility of being human.”
-Werner Erhard
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Werner Erhard 2010
Werner Erhard Quotes 